Here would Mr. De Courcy Waldie sit hour after hour, pondering over some learned treatise, digging out Greek roots, exhausting his ingenuity in patching up some mutilated fragment of antiquity, and occasionally, by way of light reading, arousing himself with the Latin Poets, but never condescending to look into any thing which could not boast the musty flavor of past ages, except the daily newspapers. It is not strange that a man of such habits should soon learn to mistake _reverie_ for _reflection_, and _feasible projects_ for _good resolutions_. There was always something which he meant to do at some future time. He would tilt himself back in his chair, plant his feet against the chimney-piece, and, with a cigar in his mouth, indulge those vague and pleasant but idle dreams, which such men are apt to dignify with the name of thoughts. The household went on with a kind of mechanical regularity. The important affairs of indoor life were managed by two old servants, who, before the abolition of slavery in New York, had been the property of Mr. Waldie, and had been carefully trained in all the duties of their station, (a class, by the way, who make the very best domestics, but who are now almost extinct; thanks to the spirit of philanthropy, which has thrown them upon their own resources and left them to die by want, vice and intemperance.) Mrs. Waldie walked into the kitchen every morning, and gave, or fancied she gave directions for the day; but Dinah needed no such watchfulness,—she knew her business and went about it as regularly as if she were wound up like the clock every Saturday night.